El Nifio, a Spanish term for “the Christ child", was named by South American fishermen who noticed that the global weather pattern, which happens every two to seven years, reduced the amount of fishes caught around Christmas. El Nifio sees warm water, collected over several years in the western Pacific, flow back eastwards when winds that normally blow westwards weaken, or sometimes the other way round.

        The weather effects, both good and bad, are felt in many places. Rich countries gain more from powerful Nifio, on balance, than they lose. A study found that a strong Nifio in 1997 helped American's economy grow by $15 billion, partly because of better agricultural harvest, farmers in the Midwest gained from extra rain. The total rise in agricultural incomes in rich countries is greater than the fall in poor ones.

          But in Indonesia extremely dry forests are in flames. A multi-year drought (干旱）in south-east Brazil is becoming worse. Though heavy rains brought about by El Nino may relieve the drought in California, they are likely to cause surface flooding and other disasters.

The most recent powerful Nino, in 1997-98, killed around 21,000 people and caused damage worth $36 billion around the globe. But such Ninos come with months of warning, and so much is known about how they happen that governments can prepare. According to the Overseas Development Institute(ODI), however, just 12% of disaster-relief funding in the past two decades has gone on reducing risks in advance, rather than recovery and rebuilding afterwards.This is despite evidence that a dollar spent on risk-reduction saves at least two on reconstruction.

Simple improvements to infrastructure (基础设施）can reduce the spread of disease. Better sewers (下水道）make it less likely that heavy rain is followed by an outbreak of the disease of bad stomach. Stronger bridges mean villages are less likely to be left without food and medicine after floods. According to a paper in 2011 by Mr. Hsiang and co-authors, civil conflict is related to El Nino's harmful effects—and the poorer the country, the stronger the link. Though the relationship may not be causal, helping divided communities to prepare for disasters would at least reduce the risk that those disasters are followed by killing and wounding people. Since the poorest are least likely to make up for their losses from disasters linked to El Nino, reducing their losses needs to be the priority.

    Every year, billions of kilograms of fresh produce are wasted in the United States. Meanwhile, millions of poor Americans go hungry, without access to healthy and affordable meals. Evan Lutz, CEO and founder of Hungry Harvest, was inspired to act after seeing extreme poverty in areas of Baltimore, Maryland. He wants to reduce the so—called food waste in that area. His work is to make sure no food goes to waste and no person is ever hungry in America. And he combines that goal with a love for business.

    Hungry Harvest is a business which collects and sells fruits and vegetables that most food companies will throw away. Everything doesn't grow the same way on a farm. But all that is too big or too small gets thrown out. That is why everything in a grocery store looks similar. Hungry Harvest will box those imperfect ones and deliver them to customers once a week.

    For every purchase, Hungry Harvest delivers healthy food to people in need. Hungry Harvest has recovered 300,000 pounds of produce to date and provided 100,000 pounds to those in need.

    Lutz established Hungry Harvest in 2014.Its success depends on team work. Every week on Monday or Tuesday they will decide what will go into the next week's box by calling up packing houses and wholesalers to see what they will normally throw away that week. They then place the order. The last step ls to send goods to customers.

    In January 2016,Lutz appeared on the American business competition television show "Shark Tank" and got even more than he expected: $100,000.Lutz is using the money to expand. Actually, more than six billion pounds is wasted each year due to "ugly" surface. Hungry Harvest is on the way to saving more food from going to waste and feeding hungry families.

    Do you intend to study at an American university? It takes a long time to get accepted at most American schools, perhaps as much as a year. That's why you should start choosing a school as soon as possible. It's a good idea to apply to several different institutions, so that you'll have a better chance of acceptance at one. You should start looking for information now, because the more information you have about each college, the better choice you can make.

    There are two good ways to get information you need. One is a general reference (参考) book, called Guide to American Colleges and Universities. The other good source of information is the catalogue (目录) published by each school.

    You can study the general guide in almost any American library. This book has many useful statistics, such as the number of students, the average test scores for people accepted to the school, the number of books in the library, and the number of teachers. You can also find the address of each school in this book.

    Although the general guidebook has helpful information, some of the facts may be out-of-date. For example, many schools raise their tuition every year. Since you'll need to know what your education will cost, out-of-date information will not be good enough. Also, schools sometimes change their requirements for entrance. To be sure that you are getting present information, write to the university and ask for its catalogue. The catalogue has more detailed information. For example, the catalogue can tell you if there is a special foreign student advisor, what kind of courses are offered, and what kind of housing is available. Some universities have dormitories, but at others you have to find your own place to live.

    With all of this information, you should be able to pick out several good schools.

    As Internet users become more dependent on the Internet to store information, are people remembering less? If you know your computer will save information, why store it in your own personal memory, your brain? Experts are wondering if the Internet is changing what we remember and how.

    In a recent study, Professor Betsy Sparrow conducted some experiments. She and her research team wanted to know the Internet is changing memory. In the first experiment, they gave people 40 unimportant facts to type into a computer. The first group of people understood that the computer would save the information. The second group understood that the computer would not save it. Later, the second group remembered the information better. People in the first group knew they could find the information again, so they did not try to remember it.

    In another experiment, the researchers gave people facts to remember, and told them where to find the information on the Internet. The information was in a specific computer folder(文件夹). Surprisingly, people later remember the folder location(位置)better than the facts. When people use the Internet, they do not remember the information. Rather, they remember how to find it. This is called “transactive memory”.

    According to Sparrow, we are not becoming people with poor memories as a result of the Internet. Instead, computer users are developing stronger transactive memories; that is, people are learning how to organize large amounts of information so that they are able to find it at a later date. This doesn't mean we are becoming either more or less intelligent, but there is no doubt that the way we use memory is changing.

Special Morning Tours

    Our volunteer-led morning tours are limited to a maximum of 20 places per tour to provide a unique visiting experience. The price includes a British Museum souvenir guidebook.

    The tours begin at 09:00 and will last for 60 minutes including time at the end to take photographs. Please come to the Main entrance on Great Russell Street (WC1B 3DG) at 08:50 with your email confirmation.

    Please note that wheeled cases and large items of luggage are not allowed on British Museum premises. Cloakroom facilities are not available on these tours.

    An introduction to the British Museum

    £30 per person

    In Room 1 (Enlightenment) and Room 2 (Collecting the world) you will learn how Europeans understood the world in the 18th century, tracing the beginning of the British Museum and the development of the extraordinary collection.

    An introduction to Ancient Egypt

    £30 per person

    In the Egyptian Sculpture Gallery (Room 3) you will see impressive statues of kings and gods, monumental tomb architecture and ancient tomb reliefs (浮雕) spanning three thousand years. These include the world-famous Rosetta Stone—key to deciphering hieroglyphs(象形文字). You will learn the importance of large-scale sculpture in ancient Egyptian temples and tombs, and get the perfect introduction to this unmissable collection.

    An introduction to China and South Asia

    £30 per person

    In the Gallery of China and South Asia (Room 4), you will gain an insight into the development of Chinese civilizations, from 5000 BC to the present day. In this beautifully decorated space, you will see from blue and white porcelain (陶瓷) of the Ming dynasty to superb Buddhist and Hindu sculptures.

A few years ago, I returned from a family vacation in Mexico, where I'd bought myself a beautiful blue candle. I was so excited to light it. But when I got home and unpacked it, I thought, "Today is not the day. I'm going to save it for the right occasion." So I put it in my closet and forgot about it.

Two years passed, I remembered my candle and I thought, "Today is the day. I'm going to light it." So I went to the closet and opened up the box—and my beautiful blue candle had turned into wax. Now what struck me is my candle did exactly what it's designed to do—melt—but it did it without me.

That candle which melted triggered (触发) something in me. It old the story to my friend Gillian. The next time I was over at her house, she took me on a tour and she showed me that all of her candles had been lit. She told me, "I had waited a year to light those candles. You told me the story, and I lit them all the next day. "

I believe, however, that those small actions send a big message and show you're no longer letting life slip— or melt—by.

Here's my advice for you: Whatever object you answered "yes" to earlier, please use it with in the next week. Pull out your china for a random Tuesday night, open the Scotch, and cut the tags off a jacket. And don't let your candle melt in the closet.